I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

^{translated from the Korean by Younghill Kang}

Bereavement is the source of beauty.
The beauty of bereavement cannot be found
           either in the priceless gold of the morning,
                 or in the threadless black velvet of night.

Nor can it be found in immortal life, nor in an unfading blue sky.
Beloved, without bereavement, after the tears in agony of death,
How could I find life and laughter again?
Oh, oh, beauty is the child of bereavement.

이별은 미(美)의 창조

이별은 미(美)의 창조입니다. 
이별의 미는 아침의 바탕[質] 없는 황금과 밤의 올[絲] 없는 검은 비단과 죽음 없는 영원의 생명과 시들지 않는 하늘의 푸른 꽃에도 없습니다. 
임이여, 이별이 아니면 나는 눈물에서 죽었다가 웃음에서 다시 살아날 수가 없습니다. 오오, 이별이여. 
미는 이별의 창조입니다.

^{translated from the Korean by Younghill Kang}

No moon is in the heaven,
No wind over the earth.
No voice comes from mankind,
No heart is left in me.
The universe might be death,
Human life might be sleep.
The golden thread of my love springing up and up and up, 
One end hangs on the eyebrow, one is hanging on the few little stars;
A vision of Madonna comes, even her shadows hid,
In one hand she holds a yellow gold sword,
in one hand she plucks the flower of paradise.
Ah! Ah! the golden thread of my love and the vision of Madonna
clasp two hands amidst the tears.
Who would know that this is the suicide of love?
The universe might be death. 
Human life might be tears.
If human life be tears,
Death might be love.

고적한 밤

하늘에는 달이 없고 땅에는 바람이 없습니다 
사람들은 소리가 없고 나는 마음이 없습니다

우주는 죽음인가요 
인생은 잠인가요

한 가닥은 눈썹에 걸치고 한 가닥은 작은 별에 걸쳤던 님 생각의 금실은 살살살 걷힙니다 
한 손에는 황금의 칼을 들고 한 손으로 천국의 꽃을 꺽던 환상의 여왕도 그림자를 감추었습니다 
아아 님 생각의 금실과 환상의 여왕이 두 손을 마주 잡고 눈물의 속에서 정사한 줄이야 누가 알아요

우주는 죽음인가요 
인생은 눈물인가요 
인생이 눈물이면 
죽음은 사랑인가요

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;
When logics dies,
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,
And blood jumps in the sun;
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labour by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

^{translated from the Japanese by William George Aston}

The cry of the cicada

Gives us no sign

That presently it will die.